Tag Archives: synchronicity

There are so many great words that begin with S: Spirit. Saviour. Sexy. Sensual. Steady. Sincere. Simple. Sublime. I settled on ‘synchronicity’ because it incorporates all of those things.

For my twenty-fourth birthday, my mother offered to take me to the Arthur Findlay College of Psychic Studies. At this point, I was ten years into my deliberate intuitive development. I had trusted Spirit, been guided by my feelings, studied books and listened to feedback but I hadn’t received much in the way of ‘official’ tuition. I had heard of the Arthur Findlay College and I was aware of its reputation as the best school in the world for developing psychics and mediums.

I was desperate to go.

Arthur Findlay College a.k.a Stansted Hall circa. 2009.

I picked a week-long course and my mother gave me a book to read: Looking Back by James Arthur Findlay.

It was a huge tome, about the life and times of the man who had left his stately home in Stansted, England to the advancement of psychical research. After his passing in 1964, his home became the Arthur Findlay College. I settled down on my sofa bed in my one bedroom flat, to spend some time getting to know Mr. Findlay before visiting Stansted Hall. I had been engrossed in his story of religion, scepticism, evidence, mediumship and belief, for several hours. My hungry reading was brought to a standstill, however, by a page that featured a letter sent to Mr. Findlay. I stared at it for a long moment, immobilized, enveloped, filled up, by the pure soft fabric of synchronicity…

It reads ‘J. Arthur Findlay, Woodside House, Beith’.

The letter was addressed to Mr Findlay at Woodside House, Beith. Beith is a tiny town in the west of Scotland. Beith is 310 miles away from Stansted Hall in England. Beith is my home – it’s where I grew up. Beith is where I went to school. As a child, I played in the grounds of Woodside House, where Mr Findlay once lived.

I got synchro-chills all over. I experienced a strong awareness that Mr Findlay’s life and mine were inextricably linked – that he, I, this book and this town were somehow in it together and that, without knowing, we were very, very important to each other. I felt a deeply comforting sense that something very personal and Universal, important and natural, grand and yet careful was going on. For a moment I felt that his spirit was my spirit was all our spirits. I could picture him smiling; guiding me on the path that was uncannily like his own, having a good laugh at my bewilderment at the connection – the discovery – I’d just made.

That feeling is wonderful. That feeling of being guided. Being expansive. Being on purpose. That feeling of ‘I’m meant to be’, that feeling that perhaps what life has in store for me without my interference, is better than what I’m capable of choosing for myself. That feeling of ‘thank you’ I see you. The feeling that the Universe has invested deeply and fully in me. That feeling of, ‘ok, that was weird’. The thrill of feeling so lovingly connected over space and time. The comfort of knowing there is a flow, and the relief at receiving permission to stop struggling and just get in it. To me, synchronicity is that permission. It’s the Universe saying ‘we’ve got this, let go.’

I can honestly say that every significant, wonderful, fulfilling thing that’s ever happened in my life has come to be through odds-defying synchronicity. Not planning, not trying, not worrying, not aiming. Just being, recognizing and appreciating.

Try it. Stop. Breathe. Let go. You are already being guided.

I’d love to know your thoughts on the subject of synchronicity. Have you ever experienced a strange ‘coincidence’ that changed the course of your life? Have you felt the synchro-chills? Why do we have synchronicity? What’s your theory? Deposit your wisdom here…

This post is dedicated to James Arthur Findlay who returned to the Spirit world on 24th July 1964, and whose life and work has inspired me so much.

Next week on From Angels To Zen, I interview Robin and Sandra Foy, two quarters of The Scole Experiment who, in the 1990s, achieved some of the best evidence for life after death ever recorded. Twenty years on, we talk physical mediumship, interdimensional communication, the philosophy of energy and effective techniques for experimenting with Spirit. I hope you’ll join us, this is not to be missed!

What is fate, exactly? What does it mean to experience a twist of fate? Do you believe that you have a fate, a path of destiny that is pre-determined and laid out before you?

…and the big question is….

If fate exists, does that mean that you don’t have free will?

These are not easy questions to answer. Although ‘fate’ is a term that is commonly used in spiritual discourse, it is also a very serious problem for philosophy, psychology and physics:

In philosophy, fate is know as determinism.

In psychology, your fate is choices that you will make based on your social circumstances, which include: the influence of your parents, your religion, social status and education. This is known as your ‘life script’.

In quantum physics, the fate of any particle is inextricably linked to the fate of another particle. This is known as ‘entanglement’. Fate behaves very strangely on the quantum level.(Think Schrodinger’s Cat)

In this post, I will be discussing if fate exists in a way that affects the lives of you and me, and if so, how does it work?

The main problem with fate is that there is definite evidence to suggest that we live in a pre-determined reality (see above, and also just lots of reports of weird synchronistic happenings generally!) yet as we live out or lives, we have the definite distinct impression that we are making choices freely and without any bossy, imaginary force telling us what to do. We seem to exhibit free will: coffee or herbal tea? get up at 7am, or 8am? To move house or not to move house? Call an old friend, or no? Your choices are being made by you, and so your life is shaped by these choices, and these choices alone, right?…Well, maybe.

I cannot offer you a hard and fast scientific formula for the existence of fate, however I have had several interesting experiences that have led me to believe that there are things that I am ‘supposed’ to do whilst alive on this planet, and I call that fate. I often get the sense that I am being led past certain milestones or markers in my life that are not only pre-determined, but are pre-determined towards some purpose. The ‘markers’ are always significant and life changing, they appear to be deliberate and often turn out to be essential to my soul’s development. I get the sense that the frequent synchronicities that I experience serve a function- they conspire with the forces of fate to lead me (by some cosmic invisible soul-map) to people, places, thoughts, actions and lessons that I cannot choose to miss or forget.

I’m sure this all sounds very far-fetched and unscientific, and it is really hard to explain rationally, yet if you have ever experienced a twist of fate or synchronistic intervention, then you’ll know what I mean! It is difficult to shake the feeling that you are being deliberately directed through life, once you have experienced this kind of phenomena. As empirical evidence, I’d like to share with you one of the many synchronistic events that has happened in my life, that has given me the sense that fate is watching over me…very closely.

When I was 23, my mother gave me a book called ‘Looking Back’ by James Arthur Findlay. She told me that J. Arthur Findlay was a man who had very interesting experiences with mediumship and Spirit communication, and had dedicated his life to the study of psychic and mediumistic phenomena. Right away this piqued my interest, being exactly the subject matter I enjoyed reading about. Arthur Findlay was so dedicated to the study and development of psychic and mediumistic abilities that, when he passed away, he left his stately home in Stansted, England, to be converted into a school for psychic studies. This school is now called The Arthur Findlay College for Psychic Studies.

At 23, I was already working as a psychic medium. I found the idea of the college really appealing- I wanted to go to learn from the best psychic and mediumistic teachers, and to build a strong mediumistic relationship with people in Spirit. I asked my mum if we could go, and I chose a week-long course that happened to co-incide with my birthday. My mum (the kind and generous woman that she is!) offered to pay for my visit and tuition at the college as a birthday gift. When our stay at the college was confirmed, I thought I had better learn something about the man whose former home I was going to be living and learning in. So I settled down one day, with the huge tome ‘Looking Back’ that my mum had given me, and I began to read. The book was about Arthur Findlay’s life and was very interesting…I was surprised to read that he hadn’t come from a Spiritual background at all! A third into the book, I turned a page and there was a black and white photo of a church. I stared at it for a long moment…the church seemed so familiar to me. I felt like I knew that church very well. I was so confused. I turned the page and read on, and I couldn’t believe what I read…

I grew up in a small town in Scotland called Beith, which has a population of 6,300 people. I lived there and went to school there my entire childhood. Imagine my shock and surprise when I read, in a caption below the photo of the church, that Arthur Findlay had also lived in Beith for much of his adult life, before moving 400 miles away to Stansted, England. It’s no wonder that the church in the photo looked so familiar…I had walked past that church every day of my childhood! The co-incidence was uncanny. So uncanny that I recognized the experience as not being co-incidence. It was fate. I went to Arthur Findlay College, and on the walls were some of Arthur Findlay’s letters, addressed to and from addresses in Beith. It was surreal. My time at the Arthur Findlay College was amazing. I learned so much that has shaped my understanding of mediumship. I learned so much that I have applied in developing my connection to the Spirit world, and the experiences I had there crystallized the feeling that I’d had for a number of years, that I was supposed to be a medium- that it was my fate. I passed that fate marker, just by being open enough to allow, and follow, the synchonicities that led me to the college. I have come to accept and trust that the same lanterns of fate continue to illuminate my journey through life.

It is because of experiences like this that I do believe that each and every one of us has a fate. But I also believe that we have free will too. So here’s the theory…

Ok, so we live in a deterministic reality. There are pre-determined experiences that you must go through, so that your soul may flourish and extend itself in the most meaningful way possible. Despite this pre-chosen destiny, you still have free will in the following ways:

1. You do not consciously know the fate markers that you have chosen to pass in your life, so you are making free will choices simply because you are unaware at the time of making the choice, that the choice is leading you to your fate.

2. You do not know how/by which path/ in which way you are going to get there. So your destination (your destiny) is pre-determined, but you have many, many free choices to make as to how you’re gonna get there. I call this blend of fate and free will ‘The Matrix of Fate’. Here are some of my possible ‘fates’ and how I may come to experience them, using my own free will.

The colourful dots are some experiences that the force of fate has guided me towards. All roads lead to them or through them, so my experiencing them is inevitable. I make free choices as to how I achieve these fate markers, but achieve them I must- many of my choices lead me round in circles!

Unitl next week: Meditate on the ways in which fear and doubt are so unnecessary because you are safe in the knowledge that you cannot make a mistake about your fate. You can choose the long road to get to the milestone: but you cannot miss the milestone. Allow that knowledge to comfort you and know that you don’t have to try so hard to make your fate happen. Relax: It’s coming! It must.

I’m excited to read your experiences with fate. Do you believe in fate or do you think you make your own destiny? Comments, thoughts and questions are welcomed. If you enjoyed reading this post, please do share it! Thank you!